Thank you all so, so much for the beautiful messages of congratulations and support for our 15th Anniversary on the 8th August. Every message was special, and here, representing them all, was the one received from my beautiful friend, mentor and our UK Patron, Virginia McKenna OBE.

That memorable day in Hong Kong, as a small team and some enthusiastic animal therapy Dr Dogs clambered onto an open-top bus, resplendent in banners and balloons, and launched Animals Asia on the 8th of August 1998.

Lovely Lesley Nicol's visit was initially organised so that she could come along and meet the bears – and naturally, so that they could benefit from all her kindness in talking about them once she returned home!

Now that the rain has eased and the flood waters have finally receded at our bear sanctuary in Chengdu, I'd like to take this opportunity to say a huge and heartfelt thank you to everyone who rose so superbly to the challenge and helped us so generously in fund raising for repairs.

Following all the excitement of hosting UK actress and celebrity Lesley Nicol on site with the bears in Chengdu, it was off to the UK to join our fabulous team in some fundraising and awareness events, and catch up with old and new friends.

What a perfect way to start an early summer’s afternoon in Chengdu – meeting Lesley Nicol and her husband Da’aboth off their flight from the UK. Despite about 24 hours of travel and little sleep, both were bright eyed and bushy tailed and raring to see the bears.

Our Australia Director Anne Lloyd-Jones has just written about a group of special needs children getting behind the bears, which has ultimately seen both animals and children benefiting from the project. The class is taught by Christine Wilkie, and also Robby Alcorn who is the partner of Animals Asia Ambassador Peter Northcote who, together with Robby and her class so generously sponsors one of our bears in Vietnam - Peter Robert Baynes.

Messages like this don't arrive in our inboxes very often thank goodness, but the message below from Saladin Zhu, our China PR new media officer, shows that one little boy had a very lucky escape last weekend:

Daniel Jeffreys, the Editor of Hong Kong’s Sunday Morning Post Magazine was recently on site in Chengdu reporting on the rescue of the Shandong bears and our work to end bear farming in China and Vietnam. Daniel’s story is out today, with our grateful thanks to him and the South China Morning Post for publicising the plight of the bears.